Compare and Contrast, "The Story of and Hour" and Richard Cory

Compare and ContrastCriminals are tried in our court system everyday for crimes they are accused of committing. In these court cases, witnesses are called to give an account of what happened in the particular incident and then a jury of twelve members decides the criminal's ruling on the case. The jury does not listen to just one witness; it takes into account the stories of many witnesses in order to decipher the truth. "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson show one cannot fully rely on what other people say in certain situations.

The reader does not know exactly what happened to Richard Cory. All the reader has to go by is what the townspeople say. The townspeople say Richard Cory went home and put a bullet in his head. That sounds like he kills himself, but it might not be that way. The reader does not know anything about what Richard Cory feels from this poem so he cannot assume anything. The townspeople are not fully reliable because they do not know Richard Cory personally. All they know is he is rich and thought to be well off. Because of this unreliability, the reader is left in the dark as to what happens to Richard Cory.

In "The Story of an Hour," Mrs. Mallard only goes on what her sister Josephine tells her about her husband's death. As soon as Josephine tells her, Mrs. Mallard begins to weeps and locks herself in her room, not knowing that her husband was actually alive. Mrs. Mallard could have verified this information from Josephine from another source and made sure it was correct instead of fully relying on one report. Not doing this led to her locking herself in her room and isolating herself from everybody else. This is not saying that Josephine is not a reliable person; she just might not have known all the facts, a good reason for Mrs. Mallard to get other opinions on the issue and find out for herself what exactly happened.

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The story of an hour by Kate Chopin is about how a woman feels about her husband's death.
The death of her husband makes her happy because marriage confined her and she wasn't
able to be free.
In this short story, the main character Mrs.Mallard shows emotions and support about what
has just happened in her life. When she finds out in the beginning about her husband's death
It's natural for her to be upset with the death of her husband, but it was her sister who broke
the news to her. From the beginning of the story, Kate makes it clear that Mrs.Mallard has
heart problems which is some ways makes her weak, adding to the news of her husband.
Another way that Mrs.Mallard is seen as the "weaker" sex is because she goes to her room
alone to continue her grief. When she goes in the room, in the story it says that "into
this she sank, pressed down by a a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed
to reach her soul". (Kate Chopin 145) In this scene, this shows that her strong emotions
caused her physical exhaustion. Once her emotions are no longer present within her,
Mrs.Mallard begins to appear as a stronger woman which is where the feminist cristism
takes effect. Later on as shes's in her room, she looks through the large open window
which signifies the open opportunities...